With anti-malware programs gaining in sophistication the most certain way to get onto a computer is to trick somebody into putting it on their computer, the ‘human engineering’ side of security. Having grown numb to pitches about naked celebrity pics, magical fat loss methods and such criminals are getting a little more creative.
One recently almost fooled me yesterday. It came in the form of an e-mail with the subject ‘Notice to Appear In Court…’. Since I do expert witness work in computer forensics this was a subject line certain to get serious attention. The message was from ‘Green Winick PLC’ and had the graphic look of a professional firm. Of course I had never heard of Green Winick PLC but it would hardly be the first time that I would be contacted for work from a firm that I had not heard of.
A few things started to look out of place though. First of course was that the e-mail did not come from @greenwininck.com or any other expected domain name for such a law firm. Then the fact that the attachement was not a pdf but a zip file, which by itself would not have been a disqualifier. But the zip file contained a program, not a document, which was certainly nothing a notice to appear would be.
A quick web search on ‘Green Winick’ indicated that the payload was a typical remote control botnet.
So no, I didn’t click on it, but it came a little closer than the more typical scam e-mail. Frankly if it was spoofing an attorney I had previously done business with it might have even worked.
Now, the lesson isn’t simply not to open an e-mail from Green Winick. The perpetrators of this scheme could likely think of a dozen new bogus law firm names in an hour.
The point is that e-mail wolves do not just come dressed in sheep’s clothing. They might come dressed as just about anything, even lawyers.
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